Evidentiary
by jenni3penny
Summary: "Why we talkin' about this? Why's it always Gill right off, huh?" / "Because you're spineless and you need a good shove?" Emily comes home for a break and finds Cal to be far from what she'd expected.
1. Chapter 1

It's not like she had expected him to look sad.

It's not that she was disappointed, or anything. Not by any means and not by how trimmed up clean and happy and unconsciously grinning he seemed. It just hadn't been entirely what she'd expected. In fact, it had been the complete opposite of what she'd expected to find. At least this way she was happily surprised instead of concerned. Because he looked far better, far brighter, and way more energized to see her than she'd expected.

Her last two breaks she'd missed out on heading back to DC because of other plans, other trips, and even the time before that he'd been his more recently usual rumpled and grumpish self. He'd been churlish after a tough case and griped at her when she'd nudged and pried too far into his personal life. Gill had just waved it off, told her not to take it too personally, but she'd still been concerned about it when she'd gotten back to class. Well, at least until he'd left her a voice mail that had been giddier than usual and all puns in some sort of pentameter or hexameter. Or limericks, maybe? She had no idea, she wasn't an English major.

But... this time? He looked nothing like she had feared he might.

Because she'd expected pouty and moody Cal Lightman, grousing about the crowd or traffic before giving way to the norm of affectionate and doting dad.

This way, though... he reminded her of what he'd been like when she was younger, when he'd first started the firm and he'd been off to meetings every other minute with Gillian. When she'd gotten insatiably bored by his lack of presence and decided to read all the books she could lay her fingers on in the house (starting in his office). When she'd re-organized his vinyl by color and then alphabet just to annoy him into giving her attention. When she'd started to realize that he and her mother may have a sort of love for each other for-ever-and-ever-amen but living with each other had been a really idiotic idea. Staying married had been an even worse one.

This was different, though – and it started in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes as he smiled on the sight of her. There was a surprisingly patient and loving look on his face as he caught sight of her and just watched her move toward him with a growing smirk. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and a dark overcoat slung back lazily from his hips as he balanced back on the heels of his boots.

Boots with a nicely cut two piece suit and a Cheshire grin.

Jesus, some things _never. freaking. changed_.

"You look happy," Emily said exuberantly, smirking as he growled a playful noise and wrapped both arms around her. He squeezed hard on her, snugging her up into his chest as he buried his face in her hair and let off a dramatically sighed sound.

She laughed into how far he managed to tug her up off her feet as he swayed back on his heels, taking her and her carry on up as he started turning a silly circle. Emily tugged tighter around his neck as she drew her feet up, trying to keep from clipping some of the other passengers as they continued on around them.

"Hell," he breathed out sincerely, voice dropping into obvious warmth and affection as he lowered her loosely laced boots back to the polished flooring. "I've missed you, girl."

"Good God," she said softly as both her hands scrubbed against the short trimmed beard that covered his jaw, tweaking against the bits of gray, "what is this?"

"Y'don't like it?" Cal mugged impishly as he lifted his jaw into her teasing, pursing his lips up pouting as she studied him intently. "Foster says it's distinguished."

"I think it's nice." She pried his head to the side by the jaw and pinched lightly on him, smirking as he grunted a supposedly annoyed and pained sound. "And who dressed you this morning, staffers at New York Fashion Week?"

"Funny little thing, ain'tcha?" Cal rolled his eyes as he tugged at the strap of her carry on, lifting it off her shoulder so that he could wing it over his own and tuck her close again. "Was in high court. Certain specific demands regarding my appearance were made."

Emily panned him a disbelieving glance before looking down the charcoal jacket and white dress shirt, her brow lifted high as she tugged at the knot of his tie. "And you did as you were told?"

"Oi! I'm exemplary at followin' orders. Gettin' outta the noose soon as we're in the car, though." His defensive tone had wended toward tender as he'd tugged her into his side, arm looped around her shoulders tightly. "How was the flight?"

"Slept some," Emily shrugged as he steered her toward the baggage claim area.

She felt him slow their steps, intentionally lagging them as the rest of the passengers hurried past them. There was a loose and comfortable relaxation to him that she surprised her, made her smile as she turned her head and studied him for a moment. She smiled into how deep but warm the crinkled lines around his eyes seemed, how crooked his grin was as he turned his jaw into meeting her scrutiny. He caught the way she was watching him and chuckled as he turned into her leaning.

His kiss went buried in her hair just before he exhaled a sort of relief and dropped his head against hers, "And your mum?"

"Crazy busy," she explained, sure to keep her voice neutral with how close he was leaning. "Lunatic speed, per usual. We had dinner late last night and breakfast at five."

"Well, you're relaxin' here." He kissed at her temple chastely before nodding them forward a little quicker, his pace picking up as they got closer to the large and wending baggage belt. "Gill wanted you over for dinner tonight but I told 'er to sod off."

"Dad."

"You're _my_ daughter," his voice shot over hers with pitch. "At least, I believe I have the proper paperwork somewhere."

"Just tell her to come over. Gimme your phone."

"You've your own, klepto." He shoved her hand off, the other palm shunting her away from him playfully."Tell 'er yourself."

Emily slapped at his fingers, laughing as he caught against her wrist and swung her back into a half hug. "Why can't I use yours?"

"Because you have your own," Cal asserted quickly, mild softness in his voice as it betrayed him. "I know, I pay for it."

"Are there dirty pictures on your phone?" She just grinned at him, turning her head up into watching his face go completely blank, features masking over as he passed her an emotionless look. "Are you sexting someone? Who is she?"

He pushed at her lightly again as they neared the baggage claim, mindful he wasn't shoving her into one of the others waiting for the belt to get moving. "Get your bags before I leave you here like the pathetic orphan y'probably actually are."

Emily mocked shock and intentionally pitched her voice louder, "You _are_ sexting someone, aren't you?"

He lifted a hand at her quickly and accusingly, "Shoulda sold you off ages ago."

* * *

"Gill's already at the house."

He nodded silently into the statement, one-handedly tugging the tie loose from around his neck as the other hand spun the wheel and veered them toward the parking exit. A quick glance to the side and he noted she'd already made herself well comfortable in the passenger seat, both her booted feet up on the dash because, obviously, she knew it annoyed the bleedin' hell out of him whenever she did it. Cal unstrung the tie from around his collar and tossed it into her lap, distracting her from typing back a quick text on her phone.

"Says she thought that was the plan?" The higher pitch of her voice, even in its softness, implied somethin' important – or, rather, something she thought was important. Not that he had any idea what.

Well, actually, he knew exactly what she was implying.

Just wasn't... completely prepared to tackle that conversation by his lonesome.

Cal squinted as another driver exiting the lot quickly cut him off and he leaned forward as the lane cleared, thwapping his fingers against her feet in a silent order to drop them. "Probably wants to go over what happened in court."

"Why?" Emily snorted as she complied then dropped the phone into her lap and lifted the tie, rolling it slowly up over the knuckles of one hand. "What happened in court?"

"Liars telling lies. Whatcha think happens in a courtroom?"

She blatantly ignored his deflection, brow arched and looking older than he'd remembered. "Why is Gill waiting for us?"

"I just told ya, Judge and Jury." Cal tossed back, feeling the defensive toss to his tone and trying to bring it back under control. "Jesus, why ya think? She wants to see you. Misses you for reasons currently unknown to me."

"We talk. Text." Emily shrugged off complacently as she leaned over the console and tucked the rolled tie into his jacket pocket.

"Yeah? About me?"

"About everything _but_ you," his daughter answered drolly. "You know somebody sent her flowers last week? She sent me a picture."

Spring hydrangea and in blues and purples and all the painted in betweens. Mounds of them but still somehow delicate looking rather than clunky or ostentatious. Broad green leaves that had just flooded over the edges of the short vase. And he'd chosen them specifically for her while the woman in the shop had just smirked at how obviously fidgety the decision had made him.

 _"She's going to love whatever you choose."_ She'd been sure of that when she'd said it from behind the counter, eyes clear and full of honest humor.

 _"Sure, but she's picky, ya know? Exceptionally hard to please. Love that bit of her, actually."_

He bit into his cheek and turned his glance away from his daughter at the memory, purposefully eyeing traffic rather than allowing her to see anything but a bit of his profile. "Yeah, I saw 'em."

"When I asked what the card said she told me it was too 'indecent' to share," Emily waved off and he tried to keep the grin from twitching over his lips as she picked her phone up from her lap again.

Well... yeah. For sure. It _had_ been a little too risque to share with _his_ daughter in particular.

But it'd put a simply beautiful blush on the woman for the rest of the day and he'd especially enjoyed later checking to see how far down her throat that flush had carried.

"Why we talkin' about this?" Cal asked, feeling his voice strangle up in pitch. "Why's it always Gill right off, huh?"

"Because you're spineless and you need a good shove?" Emily rebounded with a flat and monotone voice, nary a movement to her shoulders nor a flinch over her face. Nothing but flat cold and stark daughter-ish reality in her voice.

She wasn't gonna be gentle on him this trip – not that she ever really was. Because it seemed that apparently she felt she'd missed out on prodding at him the last few breaks. When she'd gone elsewhere than home and he'd distracted himself from pouting about it by annoying the unholy crap out of Gill. Which, really... either was entertaining. At least it had kept him amused.

Cal snorted and weaved them farther into traffic as he avoided the turn of her head. "What I need is a less invested daughter."

She dropped her head back into the seat and rolled him a blasé look, a smile inching its way across her lips as she continued her perusal of his beard and the suit. "Or a smack to the back of the head."


	2. Chapter 2

She exhaled hard as she laid back, eyes slipped closed and her half laced boots limp off the end of her bed.

Nothing had changed, really. The house was near exactly the same as it'd been when she'd left the last time. Right down to which books on the shelves still had dust and which had been affectionately pulled down and adored and placed back into their homes. Which mugs were the favorites and left strewn throughout the house. Emily kept her eyes happily shut into the hummed familiarity of the place, the subtle and nearly non-existent thrum of electronics, appliances, music and muted chatter. The sounds were the same, the smells. The way her father's voice pitched up into Gillian's laughter was sweetly comfortable.

Gill was downstairs now but getting closer to the stairs, she could hear that much. She could hear their voices mingling together in an echo of a memory that had lasted for years at a time. A sound that was, for her, nearest to a sort of permanence in regards to people. Gillian's voice had now been a responding harmony to her father's accent for longer than she remembered her own mother's being and she smiled broadly into the realization, that reminder of consistency. Gillian had been in her life for longer than she hadn't now, they'd long since passed that mark.

However, the woman hadn't actually been there when they'd arrived, despite the fact she'd been there earlier and had said she would be. Which meant she obviously didn't have any qualms about going in and out of the house on a whim, without permission or warning. That wasn't necessarily a new thing, not entirely. But it meant she had access and not a worry about how her presence would be received. The existence of that fact made Emily's smile deepen, regardless of any particular meaning.

"Em?!"

She felt the smile broaden out into a full grin but didn't move, just answered as she heard Gill take the stairs. "Yeah?!"

"Where are you, sweetheart?" There was an equal wealth of warmth and happiness in Gillian's voice, a depth of comfort that she hadn't realized she'd missed so strongly until faced with the reality of it once again. "I want hugs."

Emily pushed up from obviously freshly laundered sheets, the scent pluming pleasantly around her as she launched off the mattress and toward the door, "Coming!"

* * *

"Slight problem though, love."

What wasn't a problem was the way she hummed a little moan up under his lips, her jaw angling to easily give him more space for kissing and nuzzling. Her fingers went digging up the front of his jacket, tucking him closer as she exhaled and let her body relax into the way he was curling her up into his leaning. Gill let her head tip back and a simple moan came off her lips that damn near had him shoving her up against the hall wall.

"You forgot the - "

"Two slight problems," he interrupted quickly, wincing a shamefaced glance at her as the back of her head lolled into the door frame. It took a moment, the pretty coloring of her eyes brightening as she refocused on the conversation and blinked at him. Then she just gave him a lazy shrug that looked so nice on her he reflexively smiled in response to it, his glance darting to the brush of beard burn on her skin before he met her eyes again.

"I knew you'd forget so I ran out before you got back." She so nimbly implied that she knew him well enough to know that the last thing he'd remember to do was stop and get the spices she'd told him she needed a good fourteen times before he'd left the house. "What's the other problem?"

"Know how I said I'd tell 'er? About... y'know?"

"Cal." Her whole body went taut beneath his leaning, palms up and suddenly shoving lightly into his chest as one of her heels damn near stamped into the floor. _Bloody damn adorable_ , she was.

He didn't know how often ' _sheepish_ ' would work in one night so he tried a little bit of ' _cocky_ ' in his voice, half a smile tipping his smile crooked as he watched her eyes go thin. "Didn't come up."

A growl came up the front of her throat as she gave him another half-hearted shove. "Damn it, Cal."

Right, so neither ' _sheepish_ ' nor ' _cocky_ ' and he wasn't at all in the mood for being repentant.

He was having far too much fun makin' a blush and flush mingle over her skin to just give in already.

"What? It didn't come up yet, is all," he hummed at her, lowering his words to a whisper that he laid on her skin rather than just speaking it. "I'll tell her."

He had her for a moment or three. Because his tongue tasted against her neck a brief breathe before he dropped his mouth against perfumed skin and his hands tucked her closer. She moaned under the way he sucked against skin and closed his hands up her waist at once, the groan in his throat matching the sweetly hushed moaning in hers.

Then she remembered how annoyed she was and she slapped him back a little again. "Well, considering it hasn't 'come up', you should probably move your hand."

"Why?" His fingers twitched against her hip, palm stretching out so that he could get a handful of her curves and clutch her tighter. "That'll certainly make it come up, eh?"

"Cal."

"C'mere." It was half a demand and half a begging, emotions split in his voice and catching her excellently discerning ear, catching her attention. "C'mon, Gill. This way we can tell her together, huh?"

"I didn't want to tell her together," she argued quietly, fingering against his shirt even as she shrugged into an explanation. Gill's voice went gentle, warm and pliant as she tried to compromise.  
It was so subtly Gillian in the way she tried to soothe and smooth while being affectionate and loving. "I wanted her father to have a conversation with her so that she was mentally prepared and she had time to think about it before faced with it over the dinner table. Jesus, you can't just..."

She paused on a slowly gulping swallow. Mainly because he'd found a way to nuzzle back along her throat once again.

She hummed a damning sound into the hesitation, one that clutched him closer and urged him on. "Stop it."

"Stop what?" he asked with supposed complacence, ignoring the words and focusing on how hard it seemed to be for her to swallow as his fingers kept rhythmically rubbing on her hip. "M'not doin' anything."

Gillian made a noise of breath and utter frustration, annoyance darkening its sound. " _Cal_."

"Y'keep sayin' my name we're gonna have more than a 'slight' problem, darling."

" _We_ aren't going to have a problem," she whispered dryly into the grumbling of his voice, the way it'd gone gritty and flush. "You're going to have a problem. And good luck solving it."

"I've two hands, darling." There was more than enough smug in his smile to have her shoving his hips off hers, shunting him back half a step to a chuckle and his hands lifting from her in supposed innocence. "Three of us've managed before."

Her face went pale and challenged, features suddenly stoic and sharply angled with reproach. "Oh, really?"

"Oi," he called up after her quickly, palms grabbing up her hips to keep her from ducking any farther away from him than she'd already gotten, his body slanting back into hers again, "don't. Don't go anywhere."

"Why couldn't you just - "

"Because we should tell her together," Cal demanded but softly, nodding into the assertion while keeping his voice gentle. "Honest truth from the both of us, huh? Face to face."

She looked at him just like she usually did when he was about to do something supremely noble and ridiculously stupid all at once, "I suppose."

The wink he gave her before growling his kisses against her cheek had her just rolling her eyes all over again.


	3. Chapter 3

She didn't know who the hell they thought they were kidding. She wasn't an idiot.

In fact, she'd been raised by three of the most observant and intelligent people she'd ever met.

"Since when do you drink Chai?"

First off, her father hadn't had Chai tea in the house in the entire history of her existence on the planet – even when he and Gill were running things out of the kitchen he'd refused to keep it in his house and demanded she just drink what he had available. There'd been plenty of snitty little _supposed_ fights over it, actually - usually leading him to making Gill an entire pot of the Jasmine tea he'd kept in the cupboard above the microwave while they argued over accounts – usually verging on flirtatious and usually the type of "fight" that had her mother throwing things around elsewhere in the house.

"Y'want some?"

Yeah, so okay, dad _was_ a black tea sorta guy, but sure as hell not black Bombay Chai.

Absolutely not one that looked this elegantly (rather, _expensively_ ) packaged.

"I'm good."

"Coffee?" Gill offered as she kissed at the back of Emily's head, hands catching along her shoulders and squeezing lovingly. "You seem a little jet-lagged."

Gillian's softness, her intuition, was the exact puzzle-piece-match to her father's rough edging. As always.

"Yes, please." She unconsciously leaned back into Gill's touch but let herself relax when she realized the movement. She stretched into how warmly Gillian just rubbed against her shoulders before tugging her farther back and pressing their heads together in a half awkward hugging. "I'd kill for a latte."

"Get _that_ from your mother."

He was twitchy, probably knew she was on to him. Paranoid and twitchy and neurotic, as per usual, as per Lightman. Emily watched him judiciously, studying the color of his eyes as though she hadn't grown up watching them watch her. There was a flinch right into the happy wrinkles that lived in the corners of his eyes and the barely perceptible movement lifted her head up. In response he just blinked and a smirk touched one corner of his mouth. He _did_ realize she was catching on. So, of course, he was getting defensive. But also proud of her it seemed?

"Would you leave her alone for five minutes?" The older woman's voice whispered tenderness against the side of her head before Gill drew away to get their coffee. "Let her relax, Cal."

"Just makin' an observation, darling. Don't get tetchy."

 _That_ was it. Right _there_. Right in the unchecked heat of his voice.

She didn't _need_ any other evidence.

The intimate twist of a tease in his words, the way he shot it in Gill's direction like they'd had this same conversation a million times before (because, admittedly, they'd had variations of the same over and again).

But _that_ was it. Last straw, fractured dromedary.

She couldn't ignore it anymore.

"Are you two sleeping together?"

It wasn't often that time stood still in the middle of the Lightman home. She figured that probably the last time the air had sucked outta the kitchen so quickly and sharply and dry? Well, it'd probably been when she'd told him that she wasn't actually a virgin anymore. And she was getting exceedingly proud of the fact that, of anyone, she was usually the person who could best shut Cal Lightman up on his own turf.

But, to her credit, Gillian was a better liar than he was – at least, when it came to matters involving Ms Emily Lightman. Because her smile was unchanged, unmoving, not even a twitch of a hint of a lie or even an attempt of a cover story. "Why would you think that?"

Not even a denial, nothing which could be over-turned.

Rather, a little fact-finding of her own. Just exactly as Emily had expected.

Exactly why she'd been mentally compiling evidence since she'd gotten Gill's text on the ride home.

"Bombay Chai, Twizzlers on top of the microwave and the fridge actually has fresh vegetables in it."

Cal snorted and turned toward the way Gill was casually pouring creamer into two mugs, intentionally facing only his profile toward his daughter while he fumbled up an attempt at arguing her point. "Em, don't be offensive. Y'can't jump to a conclusion like that just by - "

"Double dishes in the sink and the bathroom smells like lavender."

Gillian just calmly and smoothly poured the coffee, her breathing perfectly even through parted lips, "Emily - "

"Hydrangea in the living room and at least two novels dad would never buy on the coffee table." She tried to keep her voice just as quietly calm as Gillian's but there wasn't a chance. Not really. Not when it was this subject in particular. Not when it was the realization of something she'd seen coming for, literally, years. "Do I need to take stock of the laundry contents?"

Gill smoothly set the pot back into the coffee maker. "I told you to do the dishes this morning."

"Toldja not to stink up my toilet," Cal sniped back, not missing a breath and letting a snap of humor into his tone. "Or read trash."

"Hey," Emily tossed between them, pointing at her father as she tried to smother and swallow down an inevitable smile, "they're both pretty good. Don't be a snob."

"The O'Brien one - "

"It's the one I told you about," she answered into Gill's excitement, nodding as she took the mug the older woman handed over to her. She let her hip lean into the island, catching she way her dad just blinked a quieted confusion from behind Gillian's shoulder, the wind taken out of him and his shoulders lowering.

"Yes," Gill agreed, her own cup tucked up between her palms and warming there. "The language he uses? It's heartbreaking."

His eyes went bemused but confused all at once, the look on his face jumbled somewhere between adoration and utter frustration. The whole of him just momentarily deflated and Emily did her absolute best to not too obviously notice how much it changed his features, stripped his cockiness from him. He was weakness incarnate in the face of the two women he loved most in the world. Hadn't that always been the case?

"But not melodramatic, right? It's the same in - "

"Oi! Ladies? My loves?" There was a higher and more confused pitch to his voice than usual, one of his hands flailing between them in annoyance and confusion. "So... we're just not gonna discuss this then? The... y'know?"

"Sleeping together thing?" Emily gave him an unmatched grin, watched his eyes widen a bit in response to it. "Like, sex?"

"Right. _That_ ," he confirmed with an uncomfortable and staccato response.

"I like that we can talk about things, dad – but that's really not the sorta thing I'm interested in hearing about. Keep the sordid details to yourself."

Stunned. He was actually a little shocked back and quiet. For a moment, at least.

Long enough for Gill to have a laugh at him and poke on his hip to draw his attention. "You want coffee, babe?"

"M'good," he mumbled, waving away the offer gently even as he watched his daughter. "This is... it's all good?"

"Dad," she cocked her head into humor, nodding a couple times as a smile hijacked her mouth once again, "it's all good."

"No questions or anythin'?"

Adorable. Really. Seriously. They were the cutest thing she'd seen in a hot damn minute. How could she possibly actually be _mad_ at either of them? Because her father was so nervously watching her, concern and fear brightening the colors of his eyes even as the rest of his face remained stone still. And Gillian? Half watching with a supposed dearth of interest when, in reality, her ears were perked for any particular clue that might twist through Emily's tones.

"Just one." Em shrugged after answering.

"Go ahead."

She put on the sweetest face she could muster, blinked slowly into her father's watching even as Gillian took a strong swallow of coffee. "So, two condoms is better than one, right? I mean, double the pleasure and double the fun?"

His exhalation was hard as Gill sputtered a quiet laugh off the lip of her cup, both his palms flush to the table as he grunted the air out of his lungs. He just shook his head a fraction back and forth, utter happiness in and around his eyes even as his mouth stayed pursed still. It was another long moment before he took a deep breath in, turned his head away from his daughter's humor and toward Gillian's cocked glance. Her brow was lifted, teeth nipped onto her bottom lip to partially hide her amusement. Emily watched that smile grow in size and affection as he caught the woman's glance and shrugged thin shoulders at her, supposedly helpless to the both of them.

"Help me," he pleaded quietly.

Gill's jaw inched up in amusement as she turned her head from her fingers, proud heat in her eyes as she caught Emily's grinning and matched it freely. "You deserve whatever it is that she's become."

"You," Cal snorted as a hand flicked between the two of them, his body stretching into the island so that he could angle farther into the conversation and more between them even at a distance, "you helped create this monstrosity, my love."

More pride flicked over Gill's features and even Emily saw the quick evidence of its existence. Though she realized fairly quickly that she likely only saw it because Gillian wanted her to see the emotion. Display of anything between her parents, whether the biological ones or not, was always intentional. It was more calculated than emotions were meant to be. But then, she saw emotion differently than most, and because of them. And they showed her very specific emotions and always purposefully, at very specific times.

"Yeah." Gill lifted a hand and cupped up Emily's chin, grinning harder into the fact the girl mugged right into the movement, head lifted into it like they made an inextricable pair. "I like to think that I did."

Emily smiled, the amusement in it softening toward loving as she studied Gill's face, glance trailing over the older woman's features, "Why didn't you guys just tell me?"

Gill's lashes fluttered briefly in surprise, the blue in her eyes going near on to crystalline as she rubbed her thumb against the girl's jaw line. After a breath she tapped the pad of her thumb against Emily's bottom lip, nodding once and sharply as she smiled unfettered adoration between them.

"Does it matter either way, Em? We're no different than we were before, not really." Her voice was quiet and familial, so much like it was a secret being shared between the three of them. Something they could carry out into the world with themselves, something only their form of family had to arm itself. "I take care of him. He takes care of me. Sort of."

"Oi! Do my best," Cal jutted over Gill's shoulder, his chin pressing down against her as he tucked an arm around her waist and leaned forward from behind her.

Emily just shrugged at them with honest innocence. "I want you both to be happy."

"Meanwhile, we worry about you, worry about how you'll take it. Worry that maybe you won't like the idea. Or maybe you'll like it too much, get too attached to the idea."

"I'm pretty attached to the idea." It was a loving whisper from Gill, her lips brushing the interruption onto him rather than her voice really saying it. Emily just barely heard the sounds of the syllables as they laid onto his short-trimmed beard.

"Well, so am I, darling. In theory and in practice," he responded nearly as quietly, kissing against her chastely before he turned his glance back on his daughter. "But I mean to say, well, what if it doesn't work? Say I screw up and you end up hurt? Eh? Either of you."

And that was the perennial problem, wasn't it?

When it came to Cal Lightman, his daughter's safety was tantamount, and Gillian's was a necessary requirement as well.

It's why they'd all taken this long to get where they were, really.

"I'm a big girl now, dad."

"No, not possible." Gill waved the argument off, the backs of her fingers brushing her hair from her face even as she shook her head. "You're still eleven years old and crying in my office."

"Hiding behind your desk because I was fightin' with her mother." She'd always loved it when her father's face did that thing – that doting dad half smile and the crinkling at the corners of his eyes thing. It's always been tailored specifically for her. It had always been a movement made specifically for her and nobody else.

"Yes, she was." Gill's voice sighed agreement, quietly reminiscent. "Broke my heart to find her there."

"I'm an adult now, guys."

Cal just snorted derisively, "But still my daughter, yeah?"

"And the closest facsimile I've got." Gill added perfunctorily.

Emily took a slow drink of her coffee, sighing into the perfect balance of sweet creamer to the bitterness, "And you were both protecting me. I get it."

"As parents would, eh?" That was that, yeah? Right. She knew that was the last bit of discussion on the matter just from his tone and the shrug to his one shoulder, the dismissal of any other information. They were her parents and they were protecting her and, therefore, tough shit for her. Whether she liked it or not. "Think I might take some of that coffee after all, Gill."

Tough shit for her. Because whether she liked it or not...

"Yeah?" Like it or not, Gillian was still perfect and gentle in response to his abrupt change of subject.

"Mmm." And he was still perfectly adept at putting himself into the woman's space, tying them up together whether by touch or even just the way he looked so longingly at her. "Wanna order in?"

"No, I was gonna make - "

"Right." Right. They were no different, even as he half grinned and teased his fingers against her hip, the both of them now entirely ignoring Emily's presence. "And I forgot the paprika."

They were no different than they'd been before she'd left, not really. Gillian was right.

They were her parents - concerned for her, protecting her, loving her. Even if that meant keeping secrets to themselves.

"I'd rather you remembered the daughter and forgot the paprika than the other way around."

And Emily left them to their favorite past-time, their playful sparring bouncing around behind her as she left the room.

"Coulda named her 'Paprika'." His voice chipped through the kitchen with a clang of a pan against another and she moved deeper into the living room even as she listened to them. "Then I'da been the bloody hero of tonight. Oh, that I'd known twenty years ago, yeah?"

"Maybe I'll give you a hero's ' _welcome home_ ' later." Gillian's response was absolutely blasé but patient and bemused at once. Emily just grinned into how second hand and homey the sound of it was as she nabbed up one of the novels Gill had mentioned and the throw from the back of her dad's chair.

" _Aye-aye_. Will ya, then?"

She snorted a laugh, flipping to the first page when a crash of pans and a pained male grunt came from the kitchen. She'd barely taken in the words on the first page when the chatter in the kitchen quieted and Gillian stepped into the room. It was a gentled intrusion, so innocuous that it wasn't actually an intrusion at all. And especially not when the woman lowered a steaming coffee cup with one hand and a cocked head. Emily smiled her appreciation as she reached to take the cup.

"Think you forgot something," Gill murmured, leaning the other hand against the back of Emily's head and pressing full-palmed heat into her hair. "We missed you."

She just smiled to the comfort of the woman's hand, the scent of coffee, and the weight of the book in her lap.

Emily leaned purposely into the touch, "I missed you guys too."


End file.
